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Peter Gray Hatchery Report
April 2017
Hello again my fellow friends of salmon and theParr Project. April is a busy time in the salmon world – although come to think of it, there aren’t many months that aren’t busy in the world of raising salmon. Alevin are developing while buried in river gravel, the last of the ice packs leave our lakes and ponds, and the smolt start to migrate out of the rivers and into the ocean. As I write this report the temperatures on our rivers hover around 10 degrees Celsius, which is the temperature range that cues smolts to migrate and alevin to emerge from their redds, or in the case of our hatcheries – their incubation boxes. Typically our salmon will emerge from their boxes in early to mid-May. We currently have around 350,000 Atlantic salmon at the Peter Gray Hatchery and 62,000 salmon at our Pleasant River Hatchery.
The 2017 smolt trapping season officially began on April 18th when we deployed our two 8 foot rotary screw traps. Smolts are salmon that have spent a couple years in the river and now are making the transition to live and grow in the open ocean. The traps have a cone that is lowered into the water column, causing the cone to spin. Fish enter the wide part of the cone and are funneled down the cone and into the live car.
These traps are tended every morning and the species and numbers of fish are recorded. Any salmon smolts that are captured have their lengths, weights, genetic tissue, and scales taken. This data allows DSF staff and DMR scientists to assess the health, age, and population size of the Atlantic salmon smolts leaving the East Machias River. Stay tuned for more updates on the East Machias River smolt population!
Smolt Captures To Date (as of 5/2/17)
- 24…
